by Ruth Wykes
After three years of written correspondence, we began telephone conversations. It was a more emotional and expressive form of communication. We talked about his younger years and where he thought he went wrong. We discussed other cases in the news.
When I had asked him about being in jail with a sentence of 'never to be released', he said: 'The first seven years are the hardest. After that, each day is no different.' He seemed resigned to the fact he was never getting out, though he was eligible to apply for parole.
Somehow, in 2005, my role changed from writer to counselor when an investigation of the rape of a fellow inmate began. According to the media, David was the prime suspect. He had confided in me and I saw a downward spiral in his demeanour. No longer an engaging conversationalist, he now was morose and talking about 'the end'.
There the moral dilemma began: Does one convince a serial killer to die, or to live?
I had spent several years getting to know this killer as a person and now he relied on me to get him through each week.
On the day of his suicide he rang me. I did not realize until later that it was a goodbye call. He thanked me for being there as a friend over the years, saying I was the only one who understood him. He also explained that the prison was cutting off our contact. His last words to me were a quotation from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: 'They say things can't get any worse, then they do'.
(Amanda Howard: Who Weeps for a Serial Killer?)
After his death David Birnie's body lay unclaimed in the state mortuary for more than a month. He was given a secret pauper's cremation, which was carried out at Pinnaroo cemetery in Perth's northern suburbs on Monday 21 November 2005.
It is one of life's ironies that on the night that David Birnie was sitting in his lonely cell at Casuarina Prison making himself a noose, his surviving victim, Kate, was in a Perth hospital giving birth to her second son. After Birnie's death, Kate made the following comments through a media release:
My family and I are relieved that David Birnie took his own life last night. We are now able to have closure and are looking forward to life without the constant reminder that a criminal such as David Birnie is alive and well in jail at the taxpayer's expense. However, I believe that both David and Catherine Birnie should have received the death penalty for the crimes that they committed, and it has been a travesty of justice that the taxpayers have paid millions of dollars to keep two murderers in jail for at least 18½ years. The knowledge that David Birnie was alive and well in relative comfort while their daughters were dead has been a constant reminder for the families of the women that the Birnies murdered, and the justice system has betrayed these families.
As is their wont, the local media used David Birnie's death to stir up the issue of crime and punishment. It was almost predictable that even before Birnie had been taken to the mortuary, journalists were leading with stories about whether or not Catherine would be allowed out of prison to attend his funeral. This stirred up a storm with many Perth residents who were outraged that she should be granted such a privilege. People were again calling for the death penalty and demanding that 'that evil woman' never be released.
The small truth that was lost in the media-driven hysteria was that even though Catherine Birnie seemed upset about her former partner's death, she had no intention of requesting to go to his funeral. She didn't see the point.
It was a different story when her former husband Donald McLaughlin died suddenly in the country town of Busselton in 2000, at the age of 59. When she applied to attend his funeral authorities declined her request, but it was a curious insight into the mind of Catherine Birnie nonetheless.
David Birnie's suicide put paid to any debate about whether he should be made eligible for parole in 2007. Debate about Catherine's future was quieted too when the former Labor attorney general Jim McGinty said in 2005 that no matter what the recommendation of the Prisoners Review Board, he would never sign off on her release.
'There are a small number of offenders whose crimes are at the worst imaginable end of the scale who should never be released and Birnie is one of them,' he said. 'I have no sympathy for her. Even though her partner David Birnie committed suicide a year ago and is no longer alive she has forfeited her rights to live as a free citizen.'
Catherine went through the motions of applying for parole but, as she had expected, it was denied.
Asked how long she expected to be in prison Catherine told one woman: 'We wouldn't even be talking about this if we'd done it (committed the crimes) a couple of years earlier.'
Catherine was referring to the abolition of the death penalty in Western Australia, which happened in 1984, only two years before the Birnie murder spree. 'They'd have wanted to see us at the end of a rope.'
What would she do if she ever got out of prison? 'Probably go to work in an old people's home. Something like that.'
Her next possible chance of parole would be 2010, and with a change in government in Western Australia in 2008 came a small glimmer of hope for success.
Catherine Birnie's nephew says she is not a vicious person and she deserves to be released on parole Patrick Turner, who is related to Catherine through her marriage to his uncle, said in 2009 that the 22 years his Aunty Cathy had spent behind bars was a fair price for the crimes she had committed.
'The Catherine we knew would never have [committed these crimes] unless she was under the control of David,' Mr Turner said. 'We let other criminals who have committed murders out after they have served their time.'
'She's kept her nose clean, from what I understand, in prison. She's done everything they've asked of her. She stopped contact with David, we know that for a fact. Personally, if she comes up for parole next year I hope the Parole Board will look at it seriously. She's not as vicious or as callous or as cold-hearted as she is portrayed to be. I don't condone what she did by any stretch of the imagination but that doesn't mean that the love for her that I still have will ever die.'
On the other side of the debate a shrill media has leapt into the fray. An Australian women's magazine New Idea ran the headline: 'Australia's Most Evil Woman Begs for Release' and opened with the highly inaccurate but easily digestible:
One of Australia's most notorious serial killers is fighting to be freed from jail - because she claims she is cured of the madness that drove her to kill.
Catherine Birnie, who took part in the murders of four women in Perth in the mid-80s and was sentenced to life behind bars, is making a bold bid for parole. 'Let me out ... I'm no longer a danger,' she has pleaded to jail bosses at her WA prison.
The truth was that, as is her legal right, Catherine spent time in 2009 preparing a submission to the parole board. A prison source told the Sunday Times newspaper that Birnie was spending time preparing her case. But he said Birnie had told other prisoners that she did not expect it to be successful. 'Catherine said she knows that no politician would ever agree to it because it would end their political career,' he said. 'She seems resigned to the fact that the appeal will fail.'
And she is right. Liberal Attorney General Christian Porter said in March 2009 that Catherine Birnie will never be released under his watch.
EPILOGUE
Women don't kill, not unless extreme circumstances lead them to do the unthinkable. Or unless they are provoked by relentless abuse. I used to believe that; I believed that women were more caring, more nurturing, and were equipped with better inner resources to cope with life. For the most part I still hold on to that ideal because the majority of women I know, for all their flaws, would never harm anyone.
When I met Cathie Birnie in 1990 I was fascinated. I wanted to know whether she had been under the evil influence of her partner David, or whether there was something different, something missing that made her a callous killer in her own right. It's fair to say that I have never met anyone like Cathie before, so for a long period of time I had no point of reference.
However, over the next eight years I had several encounte
rs with her, and numerous conversations. I was working for the WA AIDS Council during that time and frequently went to Bandyup Women's Prison to conduct workshops. Many of the chats I shared with Cathy were meaningless encounters, banter with someone you know, but at times the talk turned to things that I was less comfortable with, but found strangely fascinating all the same.
In some ways Cathie Birnie massaged my ego. I was very aware that I was in a unique position, having ongoing and, generally, unsupervised contact with someone who was in prison for serial murder. She picked up on my curiosity very early on, and recognised it for what it was. Sometimes she would feed me a morsel, to keep me interested - at other times I felt as though I had overdosed on something very toxic.
Cathie is very passive and almost childish in her day-to-day interactions. Like others who seem to have something missing, she lacks affect when she is relating a story. And while I was usually quite willing to lend her an ear, there were times when her stories rang hollow with me; times I believed she was lying. Manipulating me. Telling me what she thought I wanted to hear.
When she has a willing audience Cathie is willing to talk at length about murder. Sometimes I got the sense that the six-week murder spree she embarked on with David was the thing that she allowed to define her, almost to shape her whole identity.
In all the time I knew Cathie Birnie, the period of time when she was most animated was when another serial killer was stalking young women in Perth. From January 1996 to March 1997 three young women disappeared from Claremont in the wealthy western suburbs of Perth. Two of the women, Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon, were found murdered. The disappearance of the first woman to go missing, Sarah Spiers, remains unsolved.
I was living in Perth at the time and I remember the city being gripped by a palpable fear. Women everywhere were jumpy and hypervigilant. Blonde women throughout the city were dyeing their hair brunette, and nobody walked anywhere on their own. It was awful to experience. It seemed that the only woman I knew who was impervious to the fear, and who had no sense of the negative impact this was having on women, was Cathie Birnie.
She would seek me out when I visited the prison so that she could talk about the latest developments in the case. In fact she was the first person to suggest to me, not long after the first victim, Sarah Spiers, had disappeared, that a serial killer was hunting and that Sarah was his second victim. At the time I thought it was nonsense because the only thing anyone knew was that a young woman had disappeared, and the news was generating a lot of media publicity. Cathie insisted she knew something, and was quite insistent that someone was copying her and David.
At the time I thought it was nonsense. It wasn't until five months later when the Claremont Serial Killer abducted and murdered Jane Rimmer that I began to feel uncomfortable with what I'd been hearing. Was it mind games? Snippets of a truth? Manipulation? For the first time in all my interactions with Cathie I felt a tingle of fear run up my spine.
One exchange I had with her I will stay with me forever. I was in the library alone with Cathie and she was showing me through the selection of books. Being a writer and a bookworm I was genuinely interested in what kinds of books are allowed in prison, and what is forbidden. Cathie knows the library inside out, and we were having a discussion about writers and genres, when she led me to the crime section. It felt somewhat surreal to be standing in a prison library, perusing crime books with a serial killer, but I'm an adventurous woman.
Cathie was chatting about the Lindy Chamberlain book and for some reason I was annoyed with her. It was that small girly voice she was using, and the innocent tone she was taking. I don't even remember now what she said, but I turned to her and said: 'Cathie, don't play the helpless female with me - it gives me the shits.'
A more savvy person than me would have made sure I was between a murderer and the exit door, but I hadn't given it a second thought. I was up against the bookcases, and before I knew it her hands were on me, applying rather uncomfortable pressure. That wasn't what made me think I was experiencing the last moment of my life - it was the physical change in her face: pure rage.
Then through gritted teeth she said: 'Don't ever call me helpless; you forget what I can do.'
She let me go - but it was the most revealing moment I had ever experienced with her. Not because of what she had said to me, or because she had used physical intimidation to frighten me. But because she had let the mask slip, and I had seen what was underneath: rage, callousness, disregard, violence.
Another time she was telling me about how she had saved the life of a fellow prisoner. Apparently the woman in the cell next to her had tried to hang herself one night; Cathie heard her and alerted prison officers, who reached the woman in time to save her.
When I asked Cathie how she could tell what was happening without seeing her, her eyes almost danced: 'You wouldn't have known. But once you've been that close to someone when they're dying, that gurgling sound they make is something you never forget.'
It was then I realised she was remembering a different girl, and a house in Willagee. She hadn't told me that story to convince me she had done a good deed: she was reliving a very bad deed in her mind, and testing me.
I don't understand Cathie Birnie. I have tried to, but she is far too complex - too different - for me to know. I do know this: something is missing in her emotional makeup. Maybe the death of her mother and her subsequent unstable childhood deprived her of those fundamental building blocks on which our values and consciences are shaped. Maybe having her first child taken away by the authorities, and then watching her second child killed in her driveway, were catalysts.
What I do know is that she is a criminal who actively participated in some of the most sadistic crimes known. I have never seen her show one iota of remorse. In all the discussions I have had with her about her crimes she has never shown any embarrassment, shame, regret ... And she has never said sorry.
Within the walls of Bandyup Prison Cathie Birnie is a 'model prisoner'. She goes about her daily business with monotony, keeps to herself a lot, is studious, obedient, and generally stays out of trouble. She gets along well with most of her fellow prisoners, many of whom are convinced that she isn't really a bad person; she just got seduced by a really evil man. It's a comfortable fit for many who have to live with her, some of whom can relate to doing bad things to please someone they love.
Is Cathie Birnie a psychopath? I'm not qualified to make that call. I know she sat in her car and lured innocent women into it, fully aware of what she was intending to do to them. She held knives to their throats. She tied them to her bed. She watched her partner violently rape them, took photos, and at times even joined in with the degrading and sickening acts. She watched as they were being murdered, and in one case committed the murder herself. She helped dig their graves, bury them. And she spat on the grave of one of her victims. She has no remorse. She enjoys the notoriety, loves reading about herself in the newspapers.
We were having a conversation one day, talking about ways to deal with some mundane problem that had cropped up in prison. I suggested that she probably didn't have much power to change the situation. Cathie looked at me, smirked and said: 'You talk about power as if you know what it means. You don't know what power is, Ruth. Power is when you hold somebody's life in your hands - and then you end it.'
I walked out of prison that day convinced that Cathie Birnie is beyond redemption.
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-In-Publication data:
Wykes, Ruth
Don't Ever Call Me Helpless
ISBN 978-0-9873419-6-9
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